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Who is investing in New Zealand property?

A year on from the Reserve Bank introducing regulations on loan to value ratios (LVR), CoreLogic has released figures showing how home financing is going across New Zealand, with strong results for property investment.

Director of Research at CoreLogic Jonno Ingerson says in an October 6 report that investors or multiple property owners have been the most active in the property market in the last year. This type of home buyer is now at its equal most active level in the last 10 years. Usually sitting between 32 per cent and 40 per cent of total home buying activity, investors now account for 42 per cent of the market.

Breaking this down further, CoreLogic's research shows that the most active investors are either those purchasing a second property or those with an existing portfolio of 10 or more homes. These two groups are each responsible for approximately 30 per cent of all investment buying. This is a decrease for the latter group, who used to have a very prominent 40 per cent representation among investment purchasing.

This group is followed by investors with three or four properties (25 per cent of buying) and those with five to nine properties (15 per cent of buying).

CoreLogic's data also shows that Auckland is, as expected, a hotspot for investment. Approximately 47 per cent of all real estate sales are going to investors, which is above the national average rate of 41 per cent.

On top of this, QV research shows that Auckland property prices have increased by 10.3 per cent year on year.

Mr Ingerson expects this trend for investment to continue, now that the election result has been settled and first home buyers continue to be put off somewhat by LVR rules.